Only a month ago, the world was fixated on Game Of Thrones, with many lashing out at HBO for its controversial conclusion and slamming the network, assuming its best days were behind it, totally unaware that its next big hit was already airing in the US.
Chernobyl made its debut in early May and, to many, its title – named after the power plant in the Ukrainian SSR - conjures up imagery of some sort of explosion or nuclear disaster; many unaware as to the full extent of the catastrophe, its long-lasting effects and the unbelievable politics that accompanied the incident.
Swedish director Johan Renck took the helm on the five-episode mini-series and helped transform it into not only one of the network’s biggest shows but a title some are calling the best TV offering of all time.
It’s probably not surprising to learn Renck’s also worked on multiple episodes of Breaking Bad, Vikings and more but what might grab your attention is the fact he got his start in the ‘90s as a musician, producing music under the moniker Stakka Bo.
Renck originally performed under the name Stakka B in a Eurodance duo, but quickly made the switch to solo artist and released debut album Supermarket in 1993.
His big hit was Here We Go, which hit charts across the globe and eventually made its way into series like Beavis And Butt-Head and games like UEFA Euro 2004. From there he began working on music videos with other artists, including Madonna’s Nothing Really Matters clip in 1999.
In the same year, he wrote and directed the clip for Chris Cornell’s Can't Change Me and in the decade that followed he worked closely with Beyoncé (Me, Myself And I), Kylie Minogue (Love At First Sight), New Order (Crystal), Bat For Lashes (Daniel) and stacks more before finally making the leap to TV in 2010.
He also worked with David Bowie on his Lazarus and Blackstar clips shortly before the music icon passed in 2016.
It was his first film, 2008’s Downloading Nancy, that caught the eye of Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan when it premiered at Sundance and led to the Swedish talent directing three episodes of the acclaimed AMC series.
You might think directing music videos and dramas would be completely different, but Renck does utilise tricks he learnt while working with musicians. His first Breaking Bad episode, Breakage, features a montage of drug deals set to upbeat music.
“I found that montage really important — it shakes everything up,” he told AMC.
“But we didn’t have much time for it. Basically, everyone else would go home and the producers would be like, ‘Here are a bunch of people to do another piece of the montage, you have 30 minutes.’ I like working in those conditions, though. People are standing around giving me eyes, like, ‘Ugh!’ We ran a guerrilla crew on those, restricting it to lunch breaks.”
A quick glance at his IMDB page shows quite a scattered resume of TV credits, with multiple gaps, and that's because, as Renck told Swedish magazine Cafe in 2017, he’ll now only commit to two types of TV projects: “One is television series where each episode is a separate unit, like Black Mirror, and the other is miniseries where you can do all the episodes, as I did with The Last Panthers.”
The reason being, he said, is as a TV episode director “you only have around 25 percent of input”.
Each episode of Chernobyl is gripping, largely in part to its flawed and ultimately doomed characters, and it seems Renck played a big part in their construction and the authenticity of the series.
Speaking with Variety in 2014, he said it was his “dark and twisted mind” that drew him to shows like Breaking Bad, Viking, Bates Motel, The Walking Dead and more, where he cut his teeth in the TV world, and no doubt what made Chernobyl so appealing.
“All creation requires a scientific brain,” Renck told Fast Company in 2016 around the release of mini-series The Last Panthers.
“In filmmaking, the director is literally doing a dozen jobs at once – psychologist, parent, photographer, storyteller, technician – I wouldn’t be able to figure out how to do a great shot if I didn’t have the knowledge of how one would go about doing that [on a technical level].”
“One of the things I love about my job is the cornucopia of different professions in one. You have to understand the technique to understand the art. To say, ‘This light is beautiful. How can I enhance it?’”
Renck was a teenager at the time of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and he recalled the experience of growing up during that time.
“For a long time we were told not to eat berries or meat or anything like that from the north of Sweden,” he told Little Black Book.
“Friends of mine were taken out of school. One friend of mine moved to New Zealand for a year because of fear of the radiation.”
Renck also told the publication he was “profoundly captivated” when reading the script from Craig Mazin for the first time. It also caught the attention of acclaimed actors Stellan Skarsgård, Jared Harris and Emily Watson, who star in the hit series.
“Reading the script subsequently made me beyond intrigued. It’s a magnificent script on every level. Then it all started twirling in my head because I thought I knew about Chernobyl but it turns out I knew very little," Renck said.
“Much later on, a realisation of some kind of purpose dawned on me. I understood that this is the story that has to be told. And that the voices of these survivors, or even those that didn’t survive, must be shared with the world.
“It was a first for me. I’ve been frolicking around in the world of filmmaking for a long time and it’s always been about my own desires to make something. But here all of a sudden I did something based on truth and reality. And a completely new sensation overwhelmed me: this must be done and I must be a part of it.”
Despite his background in music, Renck didn’t take on soundtracking or scoring duties for the series. Instead, they enlisted Icelandic composer, cello player, and singer Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Strong Island) for the job, which yielded absolutely haunting results.
Chernobyl is currently the highest rated television series in history on IMBD, surpassing previous favourite Band Of Brothers and also beating Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones, The Wire and more.
You can stream all five episodes of Chernobyl via Foxtel Now.
And if you’re looking for more Renck bangers after burning through Supermarket, turn your ears to 1996 follow-up The Great Blondino and 2001’s Jr.
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